A Douglas, Wyoming, man accused of threatening people with a pistol until a police officer shot him in the hip is now facing four felony charges.
The case against Brian Shane Williams, 40, rose from the Douglas Circuit Court to the Converse County District Court on Monday, when Williams opted not to fight the state’s claim of probable cause at a preliminary hearing.
His case is one of eight known officer-involved shootings that unfolded in Wyoming in 2024, and the only one of those in which the suspect wasn’t killed.
An evidentiary affidavit that a Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation special agent filed in the case says the investigation started at about 9:45 p.m. Oct. 7, in the 700 block of Hamilton Street in Douglas.
Douglas Police Department officers arrived to find a woman and two children outside. The three essentially said the woman had called emergency services, because she believed Williams was a danger to himself while brandishing a gun.
The witnesses reported Williams was drunk, armed with a .45-caliber handgun, and had been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder following his military service, the affidavit says.
Two of his children were still in the home, the document says, adding that the officers’ goal was to remove those children from the home.
The agents approached the home and stood outside it, trying to talk to Williams, the affidavit says.
Officers could see him through a window that was next to the home’s front door. He cycled the action of his handgun by pulling back the slide, according to Douglas Police Department Angel Del Campo’s account of the scene, as written in the affidavit.
Del Campo was standing on the porch, looking through the window.
Williams held the weapon in a “high ready” position, pointed it toward Del Campo and started walking toward the officer, the document alleges.
The affidavit says Del Campo had been holding his own drawn pistol behind his leg, but he raised it and shot two rounds toward Williams; one of those rounds hit Williams in the hip, causing him to fall down.
Del Campo and another officer watched the man fall, waited “some time” then entered the home to give him aid. An ambulance later took Williams to a hospital for treatment, the document says.
The Cops Who Investigate The Cops
Doulgas Police Department called for DCI agents to investigate. This is standard practice in Wyoming when a local police agent shoots a suspect.
DCI agents and Wyoming Crime Laboratory investigators converged. They processed physical evidence and interviewed people.
The agents learned that Williams had shot two rounds from his handgun in the back yard that day, as he was “chasing” two of the children, who took cover in a nearby alleyway, the affidavit alleges.
Williams fired the gun in his kitchen, damaging a floor tile, DCI agents also learned, according to the document.
The woman told investigators that she and two of the children had fled the home before officers’ arrival because they noticed Williams coming up the stairs in the home and were worried he’d harm himself in front of them, the affidavit says.
Converse County Deputy Attorney Nathan Shumway charged Williams on Oct. 30, with four counts of aggravated assault, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
Williams couldn’t be reached for comment by publication time. His attorney Jose Delaluz Bustos did not immediately respond to a message left Tuesday with his office.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
